'Clearly not coping': Ugly new fallout over 'disgraceful' AFL incident

Veteran footy reporter Caroline Wilson has called the future of Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge into question after Wednesday night's shocking attack on AFL journalist, Tom Morris.

Beveridge's explosive press conference tirade against the Fox Footy reporter is expected to have major ramifications for the AFL club, with the incident condemned as "disgusting" and "disgraceful" across the AFL community.

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Post-match attention completely focused on Beveridge rather than on Melbourne's 26-point win over the Bulldogs in Wednesday night's AFL grand final rematch.

Beveridge's behaviour was set to be a hot topic of conversation for Bulldogs hierarchy during urgent meetings on Thursday.

In one of the fiercest sprays at an AFL press conference, Beveridge berated Fox Sports' Tom Morris for an accurate report about Bulldogs premiership midfielder Lachie Hunter being dropped for the season opener.

After the extraordinary three-minute tirade, in which he labelled Morris a "gutter journalist", Beveridge stormed out of his media conference early.

"You've got the nerve to ask me a question and even be here," Beveridge responded to a question from Morris about the pre-game saga around Hunter.

"You've been preying on us and causing turmoil within our football club by declaring our team well before it needs to be declared.

"Is that the gutter journalist you want to be?

"We went in with a plan, we had some late stuff go on out in the warm-up.

"All the other stuff was according to plan right from the Sunday and somehow you've found out about that again.

"We've got to get to the bottom of this, obviously we need to put our hand up to say there's some leakage going on."

The Bulldogs' 2016 premiership coach said Morris was "not welcome" at the press conference and Beveridge attempted, unsuccessfully, to have him removed.

Beveridge went on to claim the report was "muck-raking trash", Morris was an "absolute embarrassment" and he was giving "everyone else a bad name".

Speaking on Neil Mitchell’s 3AW program on Thursday morning, Wilson called for the Bulldogs coach to be hit with a “six-figure” sanction, while also suggesting that the outburst shows he's unfit to be coaching in the AFL.

“I think it’s bigger than the AFL looking at fining Luke Beveridge – which they certainly will, he’s brought the game into disrepute,” Wilson told 3AW.

“I think it should be a six-figure fine myself.

“But I think Luke Beveridge needs to look at whether he is equipped to coach. I mean what we saw last night is a man unravelling – and I’m quite serious about this.

“Who invokes the mental health and wellbeing card over a selection story? I’ve never seen anything so disgraceful in all my years of covering football.

“It is a man who’s clearly not coping.

“I can see how no other journo intervened in a way because it was almost so fascinating as a story to watch the unravelling of a senior coach, who clearly can’t deal with life at the moment. I don’t think he’s equipped to be looking after the futures of 30 young men, quite frankly.”

Luke Beveridge facing heavy sanctions after outburst

Melbourne champion Garry Lyon said he also expected Beveridge to face serious sanctions from the AFL over the shocking incident.

“I don’t think the AFL will like that one bit – and nor should they. Nor the AFL Media Association won’t like that one bit," Lyon said on Fox Footy.

“I know people never barrack for the journalist … but it’s a respect industry that we’re in. Like it or not, Tom was doing nothing else but his job. I don’t think the president of the Western Bulldogs will be too impressed by it.”

Former Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley was also left bewildered by Beveridge's actions in the post-match press conference.

"That surprised and amazed me. I was sitting back here ... I just could not believe what I was seeing," Buckley said on Fox Footy.

"That's an emotional response and he's created something that he's now going to have to handle and deal with over the next two or three days.

"This is going to be replayed, it's going to be gone over."

It was a truly bizarre end to a night which included Melbourne unfurling their first premiership flag in 57 years in front of 58,002 fans at the MCG.

Hunter was named in the Bulldogs' team on Tuesday night but was demoted to medical sub an hour before Wednesday night's contest at the MCG.

However, he earned a reprieve into the starting-22 when Norm Smith medallist Jason Johannisen suffered an injury during the warm-up.

The report about Hunter ran on Fox Footy on Monday night, with Beveridge bristling at any questions about his midfielder at his pre-game press conference on Tuesday.

with AAP

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